Tinkers is Paul Harding’s 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel centered on the fictional clockmaker George Washington Crosby.
Published in 2009, the novel takes place largely as Crosby lies dying in his New England home. Memories, dreams, and fragments from the lives of his father and grandfather blend together, creating a nonlinear meditation on family, time, illness, and perception.
The title refers to itinerant peddlers, including Crosby’s father, Howard, who travels through rural communities repairing and selling goods. Readers may confuse Tinkers with Olive Kitteridge, the 2009 Pulitzer winner by Elizabeth Strout, because both are literary works focused on New England lives; Olive Kitteridge is a linked story collection rather than Harding’s novel.
Tinkers was Harding’s debut novel and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2010. Its compressed, poetic style and shifting chronology make it a demanding but distinctive example of contemporary American literary fiction.